Receiving Child Support from a parent living in New Zealand

We have special arrangements for collecting and paying child support between Australia and New Zealand.

The country where the receiving parent lives makes the child support assessment.

The country where the paying parent lives may collect payments on behalf of the other country.

Paying child support to a parent in New Zealand

If you live in Australia and the other parent lives in New Zealand, Inland Revenue New Zealand (IRNZ) may refer your case to us. If they do, we’ll collect your child support payments and transfer them to IRNZ.

If IRNZ haven’t sent your case to us for collection, you should continue to pay them or contact them directly.

We don’t charge you a fee for this.

Changing your New Zealand assessment

Contact IRNZ if you want to change a New Zealand child support assessment.

Overdue payments

If the paying parent doesn’t pay on time, IRNZ will collect the overdue amount using their laws.

Disbursement of payments collected by New Zealand

IRNZ will forward collected payments to us and we’ll pay these amounts to your bank account by the last working day of the month.

Tell us about changes

If things change that may affect your child support you must tell us. This includes:

new contact details

a new address

new bank details

a change of income

a change in the care of the children

If you have a New Zealand assessment you’ll need to contact IRNZ about changes in your circumstances

Changes to your circumstances may affect your child support assessment and the amount of child support we collect on your behalf. In some cases, we may only take changes affecting payment amounts from the day you tell us.